LED holiday lights – once difficult to find and expensive to purchase — are showing up in more and more stores at affordable prices.  At the same time manufacturers have improved the selection, producing bigger and brighter bulbs and new color options.

Here are some reasons to consider LED lighting for your holiday decorating this year:

• Energy-efficient – 0.08 watts per LED C7 multicolor bulb (compared with 0.48 watts for an incandescent mini-light and 6.0 watts for a standard incandescent C7 bulb.)
• Long life span – up to 100,000 hours or more used indoors, half that outdoors, and some manufacturers provide a limited lifetime warranty.
• Safety – no chance of combustion since the bulbs are cool to the touch, regardless of how long they are left on.
• Sturdy bulbs – the epoxy lenses are virtually indestructible.

Check out our brochure on LED holiday lighting, and happy holidays!

Third-grade teacher Vicki Anderson helps students with a science project in a classroom outfitted with new energy-efficient lighting.

Efficiency upgrades get high marks from students and staff at Chelan elementary school

Major heating and lighting improvements at the elementary school in Chelan are saving money and improving comfort.

Gone are the noisy, inefficient heat pumps and stagnant air. Gone are the irritating fluorescent lights that flicker, buzz and hum.

The only humming at Morgen Owings Elementary now is from school officials tickled with the improved environment and energy savings at the building. They’re singing the praises of PSF Mechanical, the Seattle contractor that worked through the summer to install the upgrades by the first day of school Sept. 5.

Morgen Owings Elementary School Principal Jeff Peck

Seattle-based PSF is an ESCO, or energy services company, pre-qualified by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to work with K-12 schools.

An energy efficiency audit identified potential savings in HVAC and lighting at both the elementary school and middle/high school.  With help from PSF, the district secured  a state grant for $550,000. Chelan County PUD contributed $41,000 through its Resource$mart program and the school district paid the rest of the $1.1 million cost. 

The elementary school was treated to a complete upgrade of its heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system and all new lighting. Chelan Middle/High School received new lighting only.  

The control center for Morgen Owings' new energy management system.

Energy savings at the two buildings is projected at 682,694 kilowatt hours per year — enough to power 31 Chelan County homes.

As part of the package, PSF guarantees that energy savings will occur. If savings projections aren’t reached, PSF agrees to pay the difference, said Dan Hering, business development manager for PSF.

More than 2,000 fluorescent lights were replaced at the two schools. At the elementary school, 52 new high-efficiency heat pumps were installed, air circulation equipment was upgraded, and “smart” controls were added. Thermostat set points now are controlled by a digital thermostat, central computer and network of “distributed intelligence” Hering said. Changes can be made remotely, and the building is monitored and metered for energy consumption.

Chelan Business Manager Scott Renick said if funds allow, a similar HVAC upgrade could occur at the middle/high school building.

Wenatchee High School is in line for a lighting retrofit this school year. Bryan Visscher, maintenance and operations supervisor, said lighting will be replaced throughout the building. Wenatchee is using Ameresco Quantum, another energy services company pre-qualified through the state energy program.

The high school project involves a complete overhaul of all lighting at a cost of about $650,000, Visscher said, with $255,000 covered by a state grant and $51,000 coming from the PUD’s Resource$mart energy efficiency program. The remainder will be paid by the school district.

Work will be done in the evenings beginning this fall and continuing through the spring. Projected energy savings is 858,085 kilowatt hours per year, or enough to power 39 homes.

Click here to view a graph showing early energy savings at Morgen Owings Elementary.

More information:
PSF Mechanical’s recap of the Chelan project

Superintendent of Public Instruction energy grants program

David Gerlach, left, from the Wenatchee Housing Rehabilitation Program, and Mark Wiser, Chelan PUD senior residential adviser, inspect new windows installed at a 1910 home on Kittitas Street.

Small improvements have added up to a big upgrade in comfort and efficiency in Francisca Martinez’s tiny home on Kittitas Street in Wenatchee.

With help from the city of Wenatchee’s Housing Rehabilitation Program, the 642-square-foot home has new ventilation fans and new energy-efficient windows and front door.

The house, built in 1910, had no ventilation. Wallboard in the bathroom and laundry room was falling apart from the humidity, said David Gerlach, housing program director. Dava Construction, a city contractor, installed fans, replaced the wallboard and extended pipes through the attic for improved ventilation. Energy-efficient vinyl-framed windows replaced single-pane, wood-framed glass. A new front door sealed the deal.

Francisca Martinez, center, with daughter Anna and son Mateo Lucero

Work was funded by a $5,000 housing program loan, with Chelan County PUD weatherization incentives covering a portion of the glass costs.

Martinez and her son, Mateo Lucero, said cold air in winter and warm air in summer used to come in around the windows and door. That’s gone now. The windows have also reduced street noise and made the home generally more comfortable, Martinez said.

Martinez is a fruit sorter at Northern Fruit. She has owned the home since 2005.

Keeping the faucet handle in the “Cold” position saves energy

It’s cold and flu season, when we’re all encouraged to avoid illness by washing hands. Here’s a tip to keep energy from going down the drain with the germs.

If you briefly run water from a bathroom or kitchen faucet, set the handle to use only cold water. You may not realize it, but whenever the faucet handle is not in the cold position, a portion of the water you are using is passing through and is heated by your hot water tank. In the short time it takes to wash your hands, hot water leaves the water heater, but is usually shut off before it gets to you. This previously heated water then sits in the pipes and cools down to the same temperature as the inside of your house. You end up washing your hands or brushing your teeth with water that is the same temperature as the inside of the house.

So regardless of whether the faucet is set in the cold, warm or hot position, the temperature of the water leaving the faucet does not change until hot water has had time to travel from the water heater to the faucet.

If you prefer warm water for taking a shower (most do, of course) or washing your hands, you can save some water — and cut the time in half that it takes to get warm water — by turning the faucet to hot, then adjusting the handle when the warm water arrives at the faucet. When you are done, be sure to turn the faucet back to cold so that brief uses do not waste energy.

Contestants in Chelan PUD’s wintertime energy-savings contest continued to reduce their electrical use through the spring and summer. 

A review of electric bills shows six of the nine contestants saw significant energy savings in spring and summer of 2011 compared to the spring-summer periods of the previous two years. The remaining three contestants showed similar use to what was experienced in previous years. 

Chelan County is a heating climate, meaning most of the electricity used by residents is to keep their homes warm in the winter. A smaller portion of overall energy use is attributed to summer air conditioning. 

The Reduce Your Use contest ran from January 1 through March 31, 2011. Nine contestants received home energy analyses and recommendations from PUD experts about how to save energy – from adding insulation and weather-stripping to adjusting their thermostats – as they competed against each other to see who could reduce their energy use by the greatest percentage. Overall savings averaged 19 percent. 

The PUD continues to offer rebates to all customers who add insulation and replace old windows. Learn more here.  For tips on saving energy and money in your home, see the Chelan PUD website.